They reached the ship and stood before the opened outer valve.
The old man waved a hand toward the mighty metal building.
"The proudest city Man ever built," he said. "A city whose fame spread to the far stars, to distant galaxies. A city that travelers told about in bated whispers. A place to which came the commerce of many solar systems, ships from across far inter-galactic space. But now it is crumbling into dust and ruin. Soon the desert will claim it and the wind will sing a death dirge for it and little, furry animals will burrow in its bones.”
He turned to them and Gary saw a half-mystic light shining in his eyes.
"Thus it is with cities," he said, "but Man is different. Man marches on and on. He outgrows cities and builds others. He outgrows planets. He is creating a heritage, a mighty heritage that in time will make him the master of the universe.
"But there will be interludes of defeat. Times when it seems that all is lost — that Man will slip again to the primal savagery and ignorance. Times when the way seems too hard and the price too great to pay. But always there will be bugles in the sky and a challenge on the horizon and the bright beckoning of ideals far away. And Man will go ahead, to greater triumphs, always pushing back the frontiers, always moving up and outward.”
The old man turned around and headed back toward the doorway in the building. He went without a word of farewell and his sandaled feet left a tiny, ragged trail across the shifting sand.
Chapter Thirteen
The black tunnel of the space-time wheel ended and the ship was in normal space again. Normal, but not right.
Gary, hunched over the controls, heard Caroline's quick gasp of surprise.